Evil Dead: The Series 24: "When Bad Things Happen"
by OmarSnake
Summary: Well, there's this Bad version of Ash, ya see...


"Evil Dead: The Series" Episode 24  
  
"When Bad Things Happen To Goody Two-Shoes"  
  
By: OmarSnake  
  
The following episode is rated R for cussin, violence and gore.  
  
  
  
There was nothing inherently evil about the message itself.  
  
"Hi Ash".  
  
Genial. Friendly. Familiar, even.  
  
If it had been said in a greeting, Ashley J. Williams would have likely nodded back politely, perhaps even reciprocated.  
  
However, when the message was spelled out in intestines crudely staple- gunned against a wall, it didn't seem so friendly...  
  
When Ash had arrived at work at the S-Mart, all seemed reasonably normal.  
  
He had strolled in, taking note of the customers --- a good crowd, but not an overwhelming one --- and then he had made his way to the back, so he could clock in, put on his vest, and get to work.  
  
Ash was tired, despite the fact that his work day had just begun. His apartment was in chaos while his neighbor, pretty coed Jesinia Tree, stayed over until the landlord had a chance to repaint her apartment. Ash had gallantly offered to give her the bed, which meant --- despite the lascivious imagination of Ash's pal Scott -- that Ash had spent the past half a week sleeping on his remarkably uncomfortable couch. He had also had to put up with Jesinia's ornery cockatiel, Baretta, which developed an early and immediate dislike for Ash and expressed its feelings late at night by making just enough noise to wake him up whenever he dozed off.  
  
As Ash walked into the stockroom, a Hispanic kid he didn't recognize gave him a quick heads-up:  
  
"Hey, Mr. Williams, the manager said he wanted to see ya."  
  
Ash had clocked in and briskly walked up the metal stairs that led to store manager Oliver "Bud" Palmenterri's office.  
  
"Yo, bossman, what's---" Ash had started, his voice trailing off as his eyes took in the message on the back wall.  
  
Palmenterri was strewn across his desk, torso ripped wide open and an appropriate look of pained horror now frozen on his face. He hadn't been dead long... ten minutes, tops. Judging the way his trash can was overturned and his inbox and desk lamp were scattered on the floor, he had put up something of a struggle. It had clearly not been enough.  
  
Ash turned and ran back out onto the walkway that looked out over the stockroom. He caught his breath, then bounded down the stairs, looking for that Hispanic kid. Ash had assumed the kid was a new hire, a stock clerk he had not yet met. But thinking back, there was something in the smirk on the kid's lips when he had sent Ash up to the office. He knew. Knew Palmenterri was up there, dead, waiting to be discovered.  
  
Ash saw no sign of the kid.  
  
Dammit, he thought to himself.  
  
There was no way a scrawny little guy like that had been able to take out someone as big as Palmenterri without supernatural aid. If there's another Deadite demon loose in the store, who knows how much havoc it could cause?  
  
Ash pushed through the swinging doors of the stockroom, headed out into the store, when he slammed into Teddy Rammer heading the other way. They collided with a grunt.  
  
"Hey, watch where you're going, ya big oaf," Teddy snapped.  
  
Ash had no time for this. He pushed Teddy aside and ran down the aisle, looking around for any sign of the Hispanic kid.  
  
"Jerk," Teddy sneered, then headed back into the stockroom, muttering something about telling Mr. Palmenterri.  
  
Ash ran through the store, catching the attention of several shoppers and a few co-workers as well. Nothing. No sign. No screams, no cries for help, no- --  
  
A scream.  
  
Loud and shrill.  
  
Ash spun on his heel and ran in the direction of the screech he had heard, when he saw Teddy stagger out of the stockroom, pale-faced and shaking uncontrollably.  
  
"B-b-bud..." Teddy said, pointing frantically back over his shoulder.  
  
Ash pulled him close. "I know, Teddy," he said. "And the killer is still loose in the store."  
  
Teddy's eyes widened."I need you to get ahold of yourself," Ash continued. "We've got to find him before he hurts anyone else."  
  
Teddy fainted dead away.  
  
Ash rolled his eyes. "THIS is why I don't have sidekicks," he muttered to himself as he reached for the intercom to make a store-wide announcement.  
  
Just before he could, someone else came over the loudspeakers.  
  
"Ash, Line 3," the voice said with a barely-suppressed giggle. "Ash, Line 3."  
  
Ash snapped up the telephone and punched line 3 with his metal hand, hitting the key so hard it cracked.  
  
"What?" Ash asked.  
  
"Do you like scary movies?" a voice asked in between giggles.  
  
"Who is this?" Ash demanded. "And where are you?"  
  
"Just some guy," the voice replied. "And I was just leaving."  
  
Ash heard cash registers in the background.  
  
"Listen, pal, I don't know what this is about," Ash growled.  
  
"I'd tell you, but then I'd be a tattletale," the voice giggled.  
  
There was a moment of silence.  
  
"Ash?" the voice asked.  
  
The voice had no way of knowing that the phone in the stockroom was dangling from its cord.  
  
Ash had dropped it and made his way as fast as he could toward the front of the store, while he knew the speaker was still on the line taunting him.  
  
"Ash?" the voice repeated.  
  
By this time, Ash was nearly at the front.  
  
There, at the phone by the customer service desk, he saw the Hispanic kid holding a telephone receiver.  
  
All around him, customers went about their spending, oblivious to any danger in their midst.  
  
The kid -- Eddie Cabrilliano, to be specific -- looked up just as Ash leapt onto the countertop beside one the cashiers and used it for leverage to leap through the air.  
  
"Hey, no---" Eddie started as Ash tackled him.  
  
Customers screamed in surprise, and Doris Fulsom -- the old woman who stood by the front door handing out sale ads -- rolled her eyes and muttered, "Oh, what THIS time?"  
  
Ash rolled around on the floor with Eddie, who fought back as hard as he could. Which, unfortunately for Eddie, wasn't good enough. Ash got to his feet, grabbed Eddie by the collar, and slammed him head-first through the glass doors at the front of the store.  
  
Someone else tackled Ash from behind. Ash turned, grabbing his assailant's throat. It was a stocky, good-looking blond haired man in his early 50s, with a thick mustache, weathered features and blue eyes.  
  
"I don't know what this is about, but you'd better stop," the man warned.  
  
"You're right, you DON'T know what this is about," Ash replied gruffly.  
  
"Listen, son, I'm an off-duty police officer..."  
  
"And I'm an on-duty monster slayer," Ash interrupted.  
  
The man's eyes widened with shock as he looked past Ash over at where Eddie had lay crumpled a moment before.  
  
Eddie got to his feet, wiping away the blood that was pouring over his face, seemingly oblivious to his extensive injuries. "Well, if you're going to be that way, I'm gonna shop at Wal-Mart instead," he said as he held up a hand. Bone tore upwards through his fingertips, shaping into five-inch claws.  
  
"Ah... well...." the off-duty officer muttered, stepping aside. "Carry on, then...."  
  
Eddie lunged forward, slashing furiously. Ash ducked and rolled, coming up by a gumball machine. He grabbed the base of it and swung the machine like a club, smashing it square against Eddie's face.  
  
Gumballs rolled everywhere and Eddie howled indignantly.  
  
"Oh, I was just gonna kill you, but now I'm gonna REALLY kill you," Eddie said, picking shards of glass from his eyes.  
  
"Bring it on," Ash snarled.  
  
"And then I'm gonna kill every single person in this store, and it's all gonna be YOUR fault," Eddie continued, raising his other hand and sprouting claws from it as well.  
  
Eddie stepped forward, tripping on gumballs. For a long moment, it seemed as if he would maintain his balance, as his feet skidded on the floor. Then, he fell backwards, landing on his rump.  
  
"Well, that's embarrassing," Eddie said to himself, then looked up as Ash slammed a hard plastic shopping cart against him.  
  
"You know," Ash said, pinning Eddie against a wall and repeatedly slamming the shopping cart against him, "I've had it. I didn't ask for you bastards to come after me when I went up to that cabin. I didn't read the fucking book, I didn't invoke any goddamned demons, all I did was GO... (slam) ... ON... (slam)... VACATION!"  
  
With that, the shopping cart splintered, and Ash grabbed Eddie and pulled him close.  
  
"So you go drag your sorry fucking ass back to Deadite fucking headquarters," Ash said, staring deep into Eddie's shredded face, "and you tell them to leave me the fuck alone!"  
  
Then Ash pulled back his metal fist and plowed it as hard as he could into Eddie's face.  
  
Eddie collapsed.  
  
Ash took a few deep breaths, then looked back over his shoulder at the stunned crowd.  
  
"What're you lookin' at?" he asked.  
  
They began to disperse.  
  
Ash looked down at Eddie, who coughed and spit out teeth.  
  
"I thought bein' an undead ghoul would be cooler than this," Eddie said, his words slurred by his injuries. "Bad Ash was right, you're one tough S.O.B...."  
  
Ash's eyes widened. "BAD Ash?"  
  
Eddie nodded. "Yeah, man. He sent me down here to get your attention."  
  
Ash grabbed Eddie by the collar and lifted him up. "Well, you've got it," Ash said. "Now, talk."  
  
"Nothin' much to tell," Eddie said. "Just that he'd meet up with ya later, at your pad."  
  
"My... pad?" Ash asked, dropping Eddie. "Aw, fuck..."  
  
"Sir, we have a situation."  
  
Newton Fisk looked up from the pile of folders he was skimming through, arching an eyebrow curiously. The speaker was a gangly young man, fresh out of college, with hornrimmed glasses, black hair and a short ponytail... his name was something Hanover, but Fisk had taken to thinking of him as "Twig- Boy".  
  
"What kinda situation?" Fisk asked as he set a folder to one side and came over to him.  
  
Hanover sat wearing headphones at a monitoring station, surrounded by soundboards, video screens and tape decks. The rest of the office was fairly nondescript, with a pile of paperwork, several file cabinets, and a computer terminal that Fisk mostly used to play games of Solitaire when he got bored.  
  
Hanover punched some buttons on one of the boards and flicked on a speaker.  
  
"This is playback with a 30-second delay," he explained. "Of a 911 call made from S-Mart just now..."  
  
A voice came out of the speaker, tinny and panicked... someone on a telephone line.  
  
"It's a madhouse, I tell ya, a madhouse!" the voice cried.  
  
"Please explain your situation," a woman with a gratingly calm voice replied.  
  
"This guy was... he was fighting this guy, and he killed him but he didn't stay dead, and then he killed him again and went away and... Oh My God, He's Got a Chainsaw!"  
  
In the background, Fisk could hear buzzing noises and screams.  
  
"Officers are being dispatched now," the 911 operator replied calmly. "Are you in danger?"  
  
"N-no, I don't... uh... oh, God."  
  
"Are you in danger, sir?"  
  
"No, it's just that... he just cut the other guy's head off, and the other guy is still talking."  
  
"The man with his head cut off?" The operator asked, less calmly. "He's still talking?"  
  
"Yeah," the man said. "And now the guy with the chainsaw is leaving... with the head..."  
  
"Did he harm anyone else?" the operator asked. "Does he have any other weapons?"  
  
"No," the man replied, his bewilderment clear even in such a short statement.  
  
"Aw, crap," Fisk said. "Can we get the surveillance video?"  
  
Hanover pressed some buttons, and a video camera feed from inside the S- Mart came up on the screen. People were standing around in shock and disbelief, and a headless torso lay sprawled out on the floor by the customer service department.  
  
"Fat lotta good that does us, now that it's over," Fisk said. "Can you get the video from a minute ago?"  
  
"Negative," Hanover replied. "The cameras feed into a VCR at the store. We'll have to break in and steal the tape, assuming it isn't turned over to the police as evidence."  
  
Fisk tapped his fingertips on the edge of the soundboard. "Well, we have the local police department well under our control, if we need to cover this up... which I suspect we will. But the main question right now is, what happened?"  
  
"The chainsaw reference would indicate Ash Williams was the victor in the battle in question," Hanover offered.  
  
"No duh," Fisk snapped. "But did he fight Bad Ash? Nah, I can't imagine he'd win that quickly, let alone win without a lot of innocent lives being lost. More likely it was a minion of Bad Ash's, sent to launch an attack on Ash. But I wonder where Ash was heading after the fight..."  
  
"Aren't you even gonna buckle me in?" Eddie Cabrilliano asked.  
  
Eddie was, at this time, nothing more than a bloodied head laying on its side in the passenger seat of Ash Williams' car as it sped down the streets of suburban Detroit.  
  
"Shut your festering gob," Ash growled.  
  
"Ooh, that hurts," Eddie said sarcastically. "Why the heck didja bring me along, anyhow?"  
  
"So you can't do any more damage back there at the S-Mart," Ash replied without looking down, as he veered through a red light to the sound of honking horns.  
  
"My body could run around and choke people, or whack em with sticks, or something," Eddie said defensively.  
  
"It won't be able to see what it's aiming for," Ash replied. "Besides, I figure most of your evil is there in your brain."  
  
Eddie considered this. "Yeah, that makes sense."  
  
"Why the hell did you kill Palmenterri?" Ash asked.  
  
"To watch him die," Eddie said with melodramatic flourish.  
  
Ash elbowed the head.  
  
"Ow!" Eddie cried. "Okay, okay... I was sent to get your attention."  
  
"You told me that already," Ash said. "By Bad Ash. Why?"  
  
"He wants to fight you," Eddie replied. "But he lost the last fight he had with you at S-Mart, so he figured he'd try your apartment as a battleground this time."  
  
Ash clenched his teeth as he sped around a curve. He flipped open a cell phone and hit redial. A busy signal.  
  
"Still busy! Damn!" he growled.  
  
"So you got a roommate, or what?" Eddie asked.  
  
"A friend is staying with me for a few days," Ash said. "And if your motherfucking boss lays one finger on her, I'll..."  
  
"You'll what, kill him?" Eddie asked, giggling.  
  
Ash elbowed the head again, then hit redial once more and got another busy signal.  
  
He cursed under his breath as he swerved to avoid hitting some pedestrians.  
  
Oracle finished the last bite of her double-roast beef sandwich and reached for the phone just before it began to ring.  
  
"Hello, Mr. Fisk," she said as she picked up the phone.  
  
"Hello, Oracle, light of my life, dawn of my day, cream in my coffee..." Fisk's voice replied.  
  
Oracle smirked. "What do you want this time?" she asked playfully.  
  
"You don't know already?" Fisk asked.  
  
"Something about Ash and a fight," Oracle said. "Sorry, I've been distracted, concentrating on what the workers are doing at the mansion to get ready for the ceremony."  
  
"It seems Bad Ash has finally made his move," Fisk said. "About damn time, too. You know how mad my wife has been about this 'extended business trip'?"  
  
"I am the all-seeing Oracle, of course I know," Oracle said with a grin.  
  
"Thing is, Ash just left S-Mart about two minutes ago and we need to figure out where he's headed."  
  
"Okay, give me a minute," Oracle said.  
  
She concentrated, and a glow began to appear from underneath her dark glasses.  
  
She reached forward and hit some keys on her desktop. A panel slid away and a video monitor popped up, showing the interior of Ash's apartment, as seen from a hidden camera tucked away inside a light fixture on the roof of his den.  
  
There, Jesinia Tree was sitting at a computer terminal, surfing the Web.  
  
She turned her head as there was a knock at the door, then got up. Oracle tapped some buttons so the camera would follow her as Jesinia as she walked to the front door and peered through the keyhole.  
  
"Huh," she said to herself as she unlocked the door of the apartment. "What happened, did you lose your keys?"  
  
"Something like that," Ash said with a vaguely sinister smirk.  
  
"Shit," Oracle said into the telephone. "You said Ash left the store about two minutes ago, and his commute is about ten minutes, right?"  
  
"Right," Fisk replied.  
  
"Head to his apartment pronto," Oracle said, "and take every bit of artillery you can."  
  
To Be Continued.... 


End file.
